Among local political institutions in France, towns and regions seem, to many observers, to be vehicles for modernity whereas departements are vestiges of a rural past. This analysis of the policy of the public electricity utility (Electricité de France) istrongly objects to this interpretation. In the past, EDF maintained two types of relations with departments. For one thing, rural electrification was based on "departmental syndicates". For another, although the company was vertically integrated, supervisors at local centers had a margin of maneuver for dealing with elected officials at the departemental level. In the current context of open markets, EDF still relies on departemental structures in order to renegociate its contracts for distributing electricity and to reshape its territorial structures.